Need some advice: I have currently 4 Zetas left and losing my current GAC

Ignore defense. Make your offensive teams better, and keep all your best teams on offense. Win through better clears. Most people will still use 5 man teams on easy clears for some reason which means you can win on points by doing undersized clears.

Bossk is a good zeta and will work well even at his stars.
Beyond that, it's nice to win GAs but not necessarily worth throwing around zetad that could have better uses in a week or fortnights time.
Padmè team really only begins to demolish when it has all it's zetas (anikan included)

I put 3 70-80 GP solid teams up front on defense, make them burn their better teams, and then they have to beat my Geos and zboss BH team in the back. They don't beat them.
I save my 4 other best teams for offense.
CLS
Zfinn
Ewok
Empire
CLS takes Revan
Ewok take 1st order
Empire take NS
Zfinn take a lot of things

My roster lacks a lot of the heavy teams. NS, KRU, JKR, DR, RJT, where I lack in eliteness I make up for in strategy. I have won each GA battle since season 1 GAC, so 5 battles. They are always close, but the strategy holds.

If they have a power house team on defense I send in Jawas 1st to kill 2 of them.

I'd stop using that First Order team on defense. If you don't have the optimal team (lose FOTP and Phasma for Executioner & Stormtrooper) they're extremely easy to beat, but they can still do well on offense.

I'd also probably put Yoda or Old Ben in the lead slot of your Jedi team over Barris. Barris doesn't need to be in the lead for her zeta to work, and her leadership is pretty bleh.

It seems like you're mostly taking decent zetas already; I personally would have skipped Masked Kylo's, Vader's, and Palpatine's unique, but they aren't bad by any means. Just try to prioritize zetas that benefit the whole team as opposed to just the character they're on. Leaderships are the most obvious example, but something like FO Stormtrooper or Darth Sion would also qualify since they indirectly benefit the whole squad: the former by providing assist chances and the latter by making Sion much tougher (via getting into Hatred faster) and thus better able to tank for his squishy allies.

Also, maybe I'm having a brainfart but I have no idea what "ghost" means.

The Zetas that give your squads/factions suvivabilty. Padme leadership is good if u have 5 GR. Carth lead is good if u have 5 OR. Bossk lead is good if u have 5 BH and so on...

For reference, I have only lost 3 of my grand arena matches and most often finish in first place of my group of 8. As a general rule, zetas should be prioritized to arena. After that, you should spread the love. A zeta on bossk leadership will do wonders and you may never need to add another zeta to BH again, so I'd highly suggest that. Now it's awesome that you have 4 zetas saved up, but that might also be what's causing you to fall behind. The only time I believe hording zetas is a great idea is if you are expecting something specific to come around the corner that will need zetas and will come online immediately. You always have to weigh the opportunity cost, and by saving these zetas, you've lost resources. Padme teams are unfortunately a zeta pit, but you will get a lot of value from putting both zetas on padme. Ahsoka is a great Zeta, but it's less necessary and at your discretion.

Final tip. As a general rule, I always always always look to see what my opponents roster is and prepare for the worst case scenario. If he placed all of his best teams on defense, what would I need to clear it. I save those teams for offense. The choices come in when multiple teams can win on offense, so I prioritize teams that can be undersized. For example, a bossk lead bounty hunters team is most effective with all 5 characters, so I always set it on defense, but a CLS team can work wonders with just chewie and han, and maybe C3P0, but the 5th slot is often unnecessary, so CLS works better for me on offense. If I can beat my opponents Darth revan with my jedi revan (lots of practice and a fast thrawn substitute) then I will set my darth revan team on defense in order to challenge my opponent.

Anyway, use barris with padme and you're on a good track

"Jarvind;c-1957295" wrote:

Also, maybe I'm having a brainfart but I have no idea what "ghost" means.

Phoenix maybe? Their ship is the Ghost.

Maul is sort of dead weight on a Palp squad, but if you have some other sith knocking around, Maul's zeta makes for a pretty awesome sith b-team, and you only need the one zeta.

In any case, if you're struggling and have 4 zeta upgrades available, I'd try to spread them out to make two or three teams work rather than load them all into one squad. Good candidates would be both Shaak Ti and Brood Alpha. Both those teams will hit way above their weight at low gear levels.

"MightyWizard;c-1957386" wrote:
Maul is sort of dead weight on a Palp squad, but if you have some other sith knocking around, Maul's zeta makes for a pretty awesome sith b-team, and you only need the one zeta.

In any case, if you're struggling and have 4 zeta upgrades available, I'd try to spread them out to make two or three teams work rather than load them all into one squad. Good candidates would be both Shaak Ti and Brood Alpha. Both those teams will hit way above their weight at low gear levels.

You could probably snag a 2* BSF and make her 220ish speed and probably be more useful than maul. All those rebuffs behind a Palp please is gold even if she dies after laying down 20 of em.

"chionophile;c-1957339" wrote:

"Jarvind;c-1957295" wrote:

Also, maybe I'm having a brainfart but I have no idea what "ghost" means.

Phoenix maybe? Their ship is the Ghost.

Nightsister Spirit most likely.